05 September 2011

Adam has put together a fantastic looking pair of tower loudspeakers and he has shared his design with us. The speaker design uses a Tang Band 25-1372SC 1" inverted titanium dome tweeter combined with a pair of Audax HM170CO 6" woven carbon fiber mid-woofers and used in a TMM configuration.

The loudspeaker enclosures are constructed using 1.5" thick MDF with solid oak side panels. The overall dimensions of the tower speakers are 37.5" x 8.5" x 11.5" with each weighing about 60 pounds. The MDF is painted with a textured graphite spray and the side oak panels are stained.

Speaker Box Assembly with Straps

Test Fitting the Drivers

A 2-Way passive crossover dividing network consisting of a 3rd order Butterworth filter
at 4000 Hz is used along with an impedance correction network. The nominal impedance of the speakers is noted at 4 ohms and the loudspeaker covers a frequency range of about 60 Hz to 20 kHz. In-room you will get some additional bass extension (shown on the in-room measurements). The total cost for the pair of tower loudspeakers was about $900 US.

Adam reports that the Ion speaker build is his favorite so far. "The Audax HM170CO woofers produce very warm natural tones up through the
upper midrange. With the TangBand 25-1372SC tweeter the highs are
crystal clear, detailed but far from harsh. The Ion speaker is a very challenging build but it comes with a huge
payoff! These have quickly become my favorite loudspeakers." Great work Adam and thanks for sharing your work.